Rodeo
by MuchTooHighACost
Summary: Bound together by the murder they've just concealed, Gemma and Tara steal a quiet moment during 3x03, and Tara begins to realize that maybe they're not so different.


First SOA story... all feedback is greatly appreciated!

* * *

"This ain't your first rodeo, is it?"

Tara's head snapped up from the table so quickly she cricked her neck. She'd almost forgotten she wasn't alone. "Excuse me?"

"Our friend down there," Gemma said, nodding to the basement door. "I'm guessing this isn't the first time you've covered up something like this before. Am I right?"

"It's not—" Tara stopped. She'd been about to say _It's not your goddamn business_, but everything she did was Gemma's business now. She'd given up every right to her privacy on the night Gemma was asking about right now. The night she came back into Jax's life, for good.

Gemma smirked, seeming, as always, to read her mind. "It's all right, baby. We all gotta start somewhere."

Something ugly twisted Tara's heart and she blurted out, "I don't want that. Killing people… it's the _opposite _of what I do, Gemma. It's not who I am."

Taking a long, indulgent exhale, Gemma leaned forward, her elbows on the dining room table she'd grown up at. She looked Tara right in the face and drawled, "Well who the hell do you think I am, sweetheart?"

"I didn't mean that." Tara immediately backpedaled. Her eyes were on the wood of the table but she could feel Gemma looking at her. This time a year ago, a month ago even, she knew exactly how she would have answered the question. Ever since she was sixteen she'd thought Gemma was a crazy, manipulative bitch who didn't think anyone was good enough for her son. But now she wasn't so sure. Tara looked up at Gemma this time when she said, "I didn't mean that."

"I know you didn't."

They sat in silence for minutes. It was so quiet they could hear the clock in the living room tick. Tara bit her nails, looked over at the hummels in the shattered glass case. Her grandmother had had a similar set when she was young, too young to remember anything other than blurs and smells and feelings.

"Jax help you?" Gemma asked, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray.

"What—I—he only… I asked him to."

"You did the right thing calling him. For whatever it was."

"Thank you." Tara would never really get used to compliments from Gemma. She'd grown accustomed to steeling herself for whatever criticisms were sure to be flung her way whenever they were in a room together. But recently, things between them had been civil, friendly, even. It seemed like Gemma had finally come to respect Tara, or at the very least accept her, as part of the family. She couldn't imagine what Gemma would do once she found that that she'd let her grandson slip through her fingers. She knew Clay and Jax were on their way here right now, and dread formed low in the pit of her stomach as she thought of the four of them sitting down at the table to tell Gemma the truth.

"Ain't you gonna tell me?"

"I—what?"

"You know sweetheart, for a doctor you're a little slow on the uptake. Are you going to tell me what you and Jax covered up or am I going to have to figure it out on my own?"

Tara shook her head, her heart rate still through the roof. If Gemma caught on that they were hiding the news about Abel from her, if she had even the slightest inkling, Tara knew she was dead in the water and without immunity if Jax wasn't around. But in order to conceal one story she'd have to reveal another. And at last she began to understand the web of lies Gemma had cocooned herself in over the years, layers upon layers of deceit and cover-ups, until she couldn't keep the truth straight from the lies anymore.

"You remember that ATF agent who worked with Stahl on the guns case?"

"Uppity son of a bitch?"

Tara took a deep breath. "He broke a restraining order I had against him and followed me out here from Chicago." When Gemma didn't say anything, she added, "He was never here to find guns."

"He hit you?" Gemma asked the question as if she was taking down a statement: objective, calm, as if nothing could faze her, and at this point, Tara was almost positive nothing could.

"Sometimes," Tara said, taking a deep breath. "He scared me. He was violent, possessive."

"We've all been there, baby."

Tara raised an eyebrow. "You too?"

"When you've been around as long as I have, you see some real messed up shit." Gemma lit up again. "The guy I was with right before I met JT smacked me around from here to Sacramento."

"I'm sorry." There was a silence, one of understanding. Tara almost didn't have to ask, "What happened to him?" But she did.

Gemma shook her head. "I met JT while I was trying to get away. John took care of it."

Tara nodded slowly, all too aware of the similarities it bore to her own story. The growing connection between her and Gemma relieved her and terrified her all at once. On one hand, she was relieved that she no longer had to be constantly on guard every time they were in a room together. But on the other hand, acceptance from Gemma was causing her problems at work, and she was beginning to worry what it meant about herself. What had she done to gain Gemma's trust? Did she want it?

And then the thought, the horrifying thought that had been lurking at the back of her mind ever since she'd seen the little pink plus sign on the side of the EPT test two weeks ago, crept forward again. It haunted her as she lay beside Jax at night, ate her up from the inside out as she rested in the crook of his arm. It was the thought that Gemma would do anything to protect her family, and now that she, Tara, had a family of her own… wouldn't she do the same? She knew the answer was yes, and the thought of that scared her more than anything before in her life.

She'd stitched up veins no wider than a hair. She'd shot the man who'd abused her for so many years. She'd watched the man she loved go to prison. But this—the thought that she might be the same as the one person she never thought she could trust? The thought that she was becoming Gemma, becoming the mother, becoming the fierce protector of her little fucked up family… Tara couldn't remember the last time she'd slept through the night.

"Were you scared?" she asked Gemma, her voice stronger than she expected it to be.

The matriarch pursed her lips in thought. "I was scared of getting caught, but that goes away after a while. Eventually it just becomes something you wake up with, something that never changes. You get used to the blood on your hands."

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to it," Tara admitted. "Some mornings I'll be able to make it all the way to my car before I think about it. And I'll be driving to work like everything's normal, and then it'll hit me. I'll remember that I helped kill someone. And this… heaviness takes over my stomach and I can't breathe." The words caught in her throat and Tara looked away, but she could feel Gemma's eyes looking right through her skin.

"Yeah," the older woman said after a minute. "That part never really goes away."


End file.
